Any Other Way
by Toffee Taffy
Summary: Nara reluctantly leaves Valen behind in the Wastes of Cania, unsure if she can carry on without him.


**Author's Note: **[HotU] Revised.

**Disclaimer: **Neverwinter Nights and the characters within (excluding my OC) are the property of Bioware.

. . .

"I will..." She whispered.

Cania was a frozen wasteland. Beautiful and terrifying, the eighth layer of Baator was inhospitable and few living things could even survive the gelid conditions unaided. Ice and snow clotted the sky, preventing little more than the finest breaths of light to reach the plane's bleak surface.

Freezing winds lapped at their skin and Nara felt her resolve crushing under the weight of Valen's continued stoicism. Even as she averted her eyes she could feel the heat of his gaze upon her. She watched as the shavings of snow built up at her feet, the damp slowly seeping in to the leather of her boots, but she would not look at him. She would not look in to his eyes only to have him speak aloud his insane request again. She would not leave him.

What started out as an uneasy truce eventually grew in to a sturdy friendship and, in time, a love that was both surprising and profound. They had accepted one another; flaws and scars, life and death. Nara understood the call of his blood. The lust to war, to fight and destroy but she could not understand his heart.

"Please," he pleaded with her, "tell me you'll go."

Watching his scarlet hair thrash about in the wind, the soft frown that creased his lips and the comforting hand he placed on her shoulder, she suddenly hated him. Despised his dark and sinister charms. She turned her face to sneer in to the frantic winds, relishing the sting of it.

"I said I will." She hissed.

Before he could speak any more of his soft, regretful words Nara walked away.

As agile and light as she was, the elf still sunk deeper and deeper in to the snow, struggling against the wind but it did not phase her. Pulling her cloak tighter around her leather clad frame, she let her rage propel her forward, lifting her feet from the slush and urging her burning muscles to march. Each step forward was a step further from him. And right then, in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be an ocean away. Vile and wicked thoughts twisted in her mind, tarnishing the perfection of her memories. It was so much easier to move, to breathe, if she could keep hating him but she had already spent so long hating. Perhaps, she thought, she could spare him one last longing gaze. A short but tender moment before she was too far away to ever see him again. The man she loved. The man she hated.

Turning back, Nara squinted to see through the whispering veil of snow. Valen appeared to stand motionless in the distance though she could see little more than the gleam of his green armour and his shock of red hair. Warm breath twisted away in to the winds and her teeth began to chatter. Foolishly she had hoped to see him move closer, his long strides eager to close the gap between them but still he stood, unmoving and unchanging against the blinding white.

Time meant nothing in the Hells.

Every angle of the landscape appeared the same. Edged between two sheer faces of rock blanketed in perpetual winter and capped at either side with a curtain of shimmering sleet, a realisation dawned on Nara. She was being herded forward with no idea of where she was going or how long she had been travelling. The light chatter of her teeth had become a violent spasm, and she was no longer sure that she could feel all her toes. Fear injected a hearty dose of adrenaline in to her veins and she found herself escalating in to a jog, anxious to find cover.

Without shelter Nara would succumb to the infinite snow and unforgiving cold. She imagined the very breath in her lungs freezing. Soundless death. Her mind conjured a ghastly image of her own demise; a tiny mess of blue, twitching limbs and finally – nothing.

Salvation.

Etched in to the endless wall of stone Nara spied a cavity. Her laughter was coloured with a mixture of nervousness and relief, echoing off the towering rock. Summoning the last of her energy, she pushed forward.

The cave's interior was small and dreary but blessedly dry. Scattered about the cave were empty bottles, splintered wood and the remains of a hastily assembled camp. A well-worn bedroll was at the furthest end, resting beside a small fire pit; ashes and a slew of tiny bones still inside. Nara knelt beside the hole and examined a few of the fragile pieces, deciding that the skeletons of a number of small rodents lay within. She gathered the splinters of wood and inspected them further. Some ends were smooth and appeared to be painted in a glossy finish making them curiously resemble the ravaged remains of an expensive chair. She placed them in the fire pit and plucked a small handful of Velox Berries from her belt pouch, crushing them over the wood. Orange and yellow tongues of flame lapped at the edges of the pit and pierced the dark, banishing it to the furthest corners of the grotto.

When the feeling had returned to her fingers and toes Nara left the fireside and set about examining the scattered belongings and searching for valuables. One by one she looked in the bottles, giving each an experimental sniff. Spirits, ale, mead and finally something medicinal, she suspected a health potion and wished she had come as well prepared as the travellers who sought refuge here before her.

With an experimental shake and bend, Nara diagnosed herself as weary but in fine enough health. Certainly nothing a good rest wouldn't fix. She approached the bedroll at an angle, circling it like prey and sniffing as she went. When she got close enough she poked at the fabric with one pointed finger, stirring a long dormant odour. Exhausted at last, she finally let herself succumb to sleep perched atop a cold, hard stone.

When she awoke Nara had no idea of how long she had slept but the healthy glow of her fire had long expired. The light outside had not faded, nor had the restless storm calmed.

"Hells!" She cursed and the very sound of her own voice echoing and distorted as it was, scared her. Contemplatively she rubbed at her temples as though it would keep her inner turmoil contained.

_I left him there? I actually, really left him there?_ Slowly she rose to her feet and paced about the cave. _After everything we've been through. Everything we said. Valen said he cared for me, said he loved me._ She shook her feet around, savouring the feeling of the soft leather against her skin. _Well at least I can feel my toes again._

Coming to a halt Nara became so lost in her thoughts that even the simple act of walking seemed to drain her of her will. _Valen's past has always troubled him, he rarely likes to speak of it. _ She focused on many of the things he had told her. His imprisonment and slavery, his life as a soldier. _His handsome set of horns._ She laughed out loud, this time a softer, sweeter sound she did not fear. _Tieflings are a strange breed. But who am I to speak? _ Pulling back her curls she stroked the length of her pointed elven ear. An epiphany struck her. _The Blood Wars._

Perhaps it was the sudden realisation or perhaps it was the biting cold but the very air she breathed seemed to burn in her throat.

"He's trying to spare me? Trying to stop me from seeing the beast that slumbers within him." She choked out. "Shadow and Hell!"

Gathering her cloak around her shoulders and hiding her face deep within the hood, she prepared to set out once more. _You fool Valen, you could have told me. You could have trusted me._

Heart beating ferociously, eyes stung with tears, boots filled with snow.

It was difficult to tell exactly where she had come from but Nara was grimly determined to return to where she had left Valen. She had to find him, had to tell him she was sorry. _How could I not see?_ Sprinting over the newest layer of pearlescent powder the consequences of her choice became clear. She simply did not have enough provisions to last her the return trip to the Reaper and she would not go forward alone. Naturally she did not expect to find Valen precisely where she had left him, but she could think of no where else to look. He was smart. Far too smart to stay out in the snow and freeze to death. Even with his demon blood Nara did not think he could survive the biting cold this long if he were exposed. _ I will not find a corpse, I will not find a corpse. _ The horrifying visage of her imagining was too alarming to think on and too dreadful to forget.

Upon her arrival at the snowy incline where she had left his side, Nara's hear sank. _ I had thought there was a chance._ Screeching, wailing and hissing winds pierced the sleet, tearing the hood from her head. _I should have known better. _ For as far as her elven eyes could see there was nothing but immaculate snow. Her footsteps the only ones visible.

Twice in her long life Nara had made the mistake of falling in love, of valuing a life more than her own. Her fist love had been a chained man who served an arrogant king. Confessing both his shadowy past and his consuming love had not been easy for a man such as he. He feared being forced to choose between his king and his love, and she feared that ultimately his duty would come first. It did. Nara had not wanted to love ever again, to give another man her heart only to have it returned to her, broken and bruised. Finding Valen had been brilliant and terrifying. She did not want to rip open the hole in her heart that she had just finished mending. She was certain that if those raw edges were to ever become exposed again they would never, ever heal. Still, in Valen she had found someone to give herself to and with him, the darkness of their pasts had melted away. Foolishly she had thought so little of him. Thought he too had chosen his duty over his love for her when all he wanted was to protect her from the taint on his soul.

A single tear fell from her eye, freezing to her cheek and with a long, hopeless sigh Nara sat herself gently in the cold, wet snow. Freezing and more afraid than she would ever admit to anyone, Nara decided that she would rather die alone in the Wastes than fight for her own life or fight to save a world she did not care for.

"What would you think of me now?" The words dribbled from her full, quivering lips. "Huh?" The sound was laboured as her words battled against her quaking features.

In the puddle of dirt and slush the elf's whole body began to shake and spasm, every painful convulsion well deserved. Deserved and long overdue to her thinking. She smiled. _ Let that Devil take the world. I'm no hero. _ Bringing the lids down over her sapphire eyes, the little assassin slept and let herself fall in to the black forever.

. . .

_I'm alive?_ Nara was roused from her slumber, aching but warm. A cursory inspection revealed that she was in a cave not unlike the one she had rested in before though it's walls were higher and there was no damp stench. A large, warm fire crackled and popped in the centre of the rocky refuge. Her situation became all too clear.

"I thought I told you to leave." His voice was pensive.

"I did." The harsh scratching in her throat lowered her voice to little more than a gravelly whisper. "I... I couldn't."

She stared at Valen across the fire, unmoving, unspeaking. He was infuriatingly impossible for her to read but his face seemed unusually grave.

"Valen, I-"

"No." He snapped, expression unchanging. "You should not have come back. I would protect you m'lady. From anything. But I'm..." his eyes turned to the ground and he release a long, weary sigh, "I'm afraid that I'm unable to protect you from... me."

Aching and trembling she crawled across the stony bed of the cave to sit beside him, her tainted lover. She pressed her palms against the cold metal encasing his chest, wishing she could press her mottled cheek to his heart.

"Valen? You would save my worthless hide only to send me back out to my death?" Her grin was a thin slit of white teeth and despite her best efforts, she was the very picture of 'sly'.

A single, mirthless chuckle sprung from his lips. "I suppose that is what I have done, is it not? Would you rather I have left you there? What point would that serve?"

Nara's smile widened. "I would be a beautiful corpse Valen Shadowbreath." Her hand shook with his rumbling laugh. "Besides, what chance do I stand against Mephistopheles? Especially on my own."

"You are... resourceful, and _most_ capable m'lady."

"My lady?" She asked, as though the words alone were a question without need of explanation.

The tiefling raised a single eyebrow, his confusion plain on his strong, pale features.

"Stop calling me '_my lady'_. Was I really gone so long that you have forgotten that you love me and used to address me as such?"

A faint smile crept along his lips. "No, my love. It has not been _that_ long. I just know that the more I coddle and whisper honeyed words, the more likely you are to say-"

"Let's stay here." Nara beamed at him. "Let's stay here in the Hells and leave the world to defend itself! Leave the surface to those that need it. What need do I have for those cities, those people?"

Her gleeful smile weighed in to a frown. For the first time since their arrival in the Hells she could truly feel the enormity of their situation. Valen removed his gauntlets and tilted his head thoughtfully, warming his fingers by the fire.

"As much as the idea seems to please you my love," he cupped her cheeks in the palms of his large, calloused hands, "I would rather not stay here a moment long than we must."

"We? So you would deign to travel with me once again Valen Shadowbreath?"

"If you would want me."

The unfamiliar burn of a blush crept along her cheekbones. "I never wanted anything else."

Pulling her close, Valen gently parted her lips with his, painting them with a soft, lingering kiss. Before he could pull away Nara fell in to his lap, pressing her body flush against his and giving him a long, heated kiss that stole his breath and bruised her lips.

He smiled brightly, getting to his feet and offering her his hand. "Then, my love, I would not have it any other way."


End file.
